Learn Hardcore Finnish: Tänään olen helpottuneempi kuin eilen.

Starting with Tänään puts a little focus on today.
Starting with Olen is the most neutral: I am more relieved today than yesterday.
Putting tänään right before kuin eilen: Olen helpottuneempi tänään kuin eilen emphasizes the contrast between today and yesterday as time points.

So yes, you can move them, but the given order is very natural and slightly highlights today.

Why is it helpottuneempi and not something like helpottunutempi?

Helpottunut (relieved) is a past participle that behaves like an adjective. Its comparative form follows a regular pattern:

Start from helpottunut.
Drop the final -ut:
- helpottunut → helpottun-
Add -e- + -mpi:
- helpottun- + e + mpi = helpottuneempi

So you get helpottuneempi.

This pattern is the same as with other -nut / -nyt adjectives:

väsynyt (tired) → väsyneempi (more tired)
yllättynyt (surprised) → yllättyneempi (more surprised)

Forms like helpottunutempi are not correct; Finnish doesn’t stack -ut and -mpi directly. Instead, -ut/-yt turns into -e- before -mpi.

Could I say enemmän helpottunut instead of helpottuneempi?

You can say:

Tänään olen enemmän helpottunut kuin eilen.

This is understandable and not wrong, but it sounds less natural than the built‑in comparative helpottuneempi.

General guideline:

Prefer -mpi forms (comparatives) when they exist:
- pitkä → pidempi (long → longer), not normally enemmän pitkä
- väsynyt → väsyneempi (tired → more tired)
- helpottunut → helpottuneempi (relieved → more relieved)

enemmän + adjective is used:

when it’s hard or impossible to form a clear comparative with -mpi, or
for stylistic or emphasis reasons.

In everyday speech and writing, helpottuneempi is the default and most idiomatic.

What exactly is helpottunut? Is it a verb form or an adjective?

Helpottunut is originally a past participle of the verb helpottua (to become relieved), but in this sentence it functions as an adjective:

Olen helpottunut. – I am relieved. (state, not an action)

When you make helpottunut comparative (helpottuneempi), you are definitely using it as an adjective. Finnish participles often act like adjectives, especially when used with olla:

Olen väsynyt. – I am tired.
Olen yllättynyt. – I am surprised.
Olen helpottunut. – I am relieved.

So here you can just think of helpottunut / helpottuneempi as adjectives that describe your state.

Why do we need kuin? Does Finnish always use kuin in comparisons like this?

Yes: with comparative adjectives (-mpi forms), Finnish normally uses kuin to introduce the thing you compare to.

Pattern:

[X] on [adjective-mpi] kuin [Y].

Examples:

Olen vanhempi kuin sinä. – I am older than you.
Tämä on parempi kuin tuo. – This is better than that.
Tänään olen helpottuneempi kuin eilen. – Today I am more relieved than yesterday.

You can sometimes drop the kuin‑phrase when the comparison target is obvious from context:

Tänään olen helpottuneempi. – Today I am more relieved (than before / than I expected, etc.).

But as soon as you want to say more … than X, you use kuin + X.

Why is eilen in this bare form? Shouldn’t it have a case ending?

Eilen (yesterday) is an adverb of time, not a noun in a particular case. It doesn’t take case endings like -ssa, -lla, -na, etc.

Other similar adverbs:

tänään – today
huomenna – tomorrow
nyt – now
silloin – then

So:

Tänään olen helpottuneempi kuin eilen.
- tänään and eilen are both adverbs of time.

You could use noun phrases instead (with cases), but they’d be different expressions:

Tänä päivänä (on this day, nowadays) – adessive form tied to päivä (day)
Viime vuonna (last year, literally in the last year) – adessive

In this short sentence, eilen is just a simple, uninflected adverb.

Could I say Tänä päivänä olen helpottuneempi kuin eilen instead of Tänään? What’s the nuance?

You can say:

Tänä päivänä olen helpottuneempi kuin eilen.

But it sounds more like:

These days / nowadays I am more relieved than I was yesterday / before.

Nuance:

Tänään = today (this specific day)
- Focus on today vs yesterday as single days.
Tänä päivänä = literally on this day, but often used like nowadays or in this era.
- Can sound a bit more general or slightly formal/abstract.

For a basic today vs yesterday contrast, Tänään is the natural choice. Tänä päivänä would usually fit a more general, commentary‑style sentence.

Why is it olen (I am) and not something like minä helpottuneempi tänään kuin eilen, leaving out the verb?

In Finnish, you generally need the verb olla (to be) in sentences like this:

(Minä) olen helpottuneempi. – I am more relieved.

You can omit minä (the pronoun) because olen already tells you it’s I (1st person singular), but you do not drop olen.

So:

✅ Tänään olen helpottuneempi kuin eilen.
❌ Tänään minä helpottuneempi kuin eilen. (ungrammatical)

There are some special elliptical structures where olla can be dropped in headlines or very casual speech, but not in a normal full sentence like this.

How would I say “Today I am more relieved than I was yesterday” more literally, including the “I was” part?

The original sentence:

Tänään olen helpottuneempi kuin eilen.

already means “Today I am more relieved than (I was) yesterday.” The “I was” is understood.

If you really want to make the past part explicit, you could say:

Tänään olen helpottuneempi kuin olin eilen.

This literally mirrors English:

Today I am more relieved than I was yesterday.

Often, though, Finns leave out the second verb when it’s clear from context, so the shorter original sentence is more natural in everyday usage.

Can Tänään olen helpottuneempi kuin eilen mean “more relieved than yesterday’s me,” or could it also mean “more relieved today than yesterday was” (personified)?

In normal interpretation, it only means:

“Today I am more relieved than I was yesterday.”

The implied comparison is between today’s state of “I” and yesterday’s state of “I”.

Finnish doesn’t naturally read eilen (yesterday) as an active participant like “yesterday is more relieved”. For that kind of personification, you’d have to rephrase drastically, and people would still probably reinterpret it as a time comparison.

So you can safely treat it as comparing you-today with you-yesterday, exactly like in English.